The Rampage of Ryan O'Hara (5 page)

Parting with his gun wasn’t something he relished, but concealing it in his checked luggage was his only option for getting it back to San Francisco. He’d
thought about taking the train instead of flying, but he just didn’t have that kind of time to spare.

Ryan hoped the gun wouldn’t be discovered or stolen by some dishonest baggage handler, but that was a chance he’d have to take. There was no use worrying about that now.

He’d picked up a paper at the newsstand next to the lounge. The headline on the front page gave him a feeling of satisfaction. Smiling, he read the article.

The article went on to detail Bill’s and Brenda’s lives, describing them as former college radicals who had become prominent in both the academic and political arenas. It excused their criminal past as nothing more than a time of “youthful expression” and pretty much fluffed over their terrorist and bombing campaigns.

Ryan heard the announcement that his flight was preparing to board. He downed his drink, left the newspaper on the table, and proceeded to the gate. Other than the headline and first few paragraphs describing the demise of his victims, there was nothing interesting to him about the article. The fact that they had died painfully was all that mattered. Ryan wasn’t interested in reading about how respected they were, who their political friends were, or to what foundations they had belonged. All of that editorial eulogizing was bullshit. They had been scumbags, pure and simple, and no accolades about their academic achievements or standing in the community would change that. The only change that mattered was that now they were dead scumbags.

The flight back to San Francisco was restful. The events of the previous day had taxed him and he slept most of the way. He awakened to gentle shaking from a pretty American Airlines flight attendant who asked him to return his seat to the upright position and fasten his seatbelt in preparation for landing.

Ryan gazed out the window as the plane descended through the clouds on its approach to San Francisco International Airport. Lights sparkled on the peninsula below as the sun retreated behind the western hills, giving way to dusk.

Upon deplaning, Ryan retrieved his luggage. He was relieved to find it still locked and intact. He walked the short distance to an elevator and took it up a couple of floors to long-term parking.

After putting his suitcase in the trunk of his aging Crown Vic, he started it up and headed for the exit. He drove north on the Bayshore Freeway toward San Francisco. As he crossed the San Francisco/San Mateo County line into the city, he thought about the previous couple of days and contemplated his next move.

Following the James Lick Freeway north, he merged into the westbound lanes and took the Fell Street off-ramp, driving west past the Panhandle and along the southern edge of Golden Gate Park before entering Lincoln Way. He felt vindicated as he passed Park Station, knowing that he was finally getting some justice for his grandpa, but he also realized that there were still a few more scores to settle before he was finished. Turning onto Twenty-Fifth Avenue, he drove a couple of blocks and pulled up in front of the old house.

The moist fog rolling in from the Pacific cooled his face as he locked the car and climbed the stairs. Ryan flicked on the light in the living room and went over to the answering machine to check his messages. There were two—both from people he had been hoping would call.

He pressed the button and listened. “Hey, bro. Sal here. I got your call. Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. Call me so we can hook up.”

The second message was from a woman. “Hi, big guy. It’s Carol. Good to hear you’re in town. Am I gonna
get to see you? Give me a call if you have the time. Love ya, darlin’. Bye.”

Carol was someone very special; he always spent time with her when he was in town. Yeah, he would definitely see her, but that would have to wait until his business with Sal was concluded.

Ryan walked down the hall to one of the back bedrooms and laid his suitcase on the bed. After removing the gun, he retrieved a box of bullets from the night-stand and reloaded it.

S
unlight was streaming through the large bay window in the living room.

The last thing Ryan remembered was sitting down in the La-Z-Boy and popping open the can of Bud that now stood half empty on the table next to him.

He downed what was left of the beer before getting up and going to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. Had to have that morning cup of joe. Actually it was more like six cups. Ryan was a real caffeine addict, and if he didn’t pump himself full of it in the morning he could be a mean and irritable son of a bitch.

The coffee hit the spot. “Hot and black, just the way I like my women,” Ryan thought. He laughed as he remembered his grandpa’s standard answer to people who asked him how he liked his mud.

He picked up the phone and dialed Sal’s number.

The voice on the other end was raspy. “Hello.”

“Hey, Sal, it’s Ryan. What’s going on?”

“Nothing much, brother. Sorry I missed you the other day when you called. How long you in town for this time?” Sal asked.

“I’ve got an extended leave so I’ll be here for a while. I need to see you about something as soon as possible. When can we get together?”

“How about tonight, bro? I don’t have anything going on. How’s that restaurant at Rockaway Beach sound?” asked Sal.

“Rockaway it is. Five o’clock all right?”

“Five sounds good. I’ll see you then.”

Ryan hung up and gathered his thoughts. He’d been thinking about this meeting for a long time and hoped that Sal would be receptive to the plan that was formulating in his mind. It had begun as an afterthought to avenging the murder of his grandfather, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made.

Later that day, Ryan drove along the Pacific Coast Highway en route to his meeting with Sal. The panorama that unfolded before him as he descended the winding, mile-long grade into the city of Pacifica was truly breathtaking. Three sets of rugged hills surrounded the seaside community, forming a backdrop
for an ocean still gleaming from the light of a sun that was slowly disappearing beyond the western horizon.

Ryan pulled into the parking lot at Rockaway. The restaurant was a local landmark. Situated at the water’s edge, it was famous for its seafood.

It was four-thirty and Sal wasn’t due for another half hour or so. Ryan decided to take a walk on the beach. He made his way along the sand and gazed at Pedro Point, a distant rock formation to the south. Seagulls and pelicans skimmed the water looking for fish as a couple of crows cawed from their perch on a large piece of driftwood nearby. Crows were funny animals, always moving sideways and jumping away when approached. Ryan chuckled. “Goddamned flying rats,” he thought.

Watching the seagulls reminded him of the time his grandma took him to Fleishhacker Zoo. She had been applying mustard to a hot dog she’d bought him when a gray-feathered scavenger swooped down, grabbed the dog, and flew away with it. He laughed. That was the only time he could remember his usually pious grandma getting her Irish up enough to actually curse.

Ryan sat on a rock near the high-tide mark and reflected back to when he and Sal first met. They were students—or, as they liked to joke, inmates—at the Dawn of Light Catholic Boys’ Home in the Napa Valley.

Mr. and Mrs. O’Hara had taken their wayward thirteen-year-old to the facility because they were at their wits’ end. The boy was totally out of control. His parents believed that his behavior was a manifestation of deep, unresolved emotional trauma buried in his psyche.

Five years had passed since the murder of his grandfather. His grandmother’s death the following year had served to compound the already overwhelming turmoil he felt. The once-polite little boy with the infectious smile had become a scowling troublemaker whose main recreation in life was beating the hell out of anyone who looked at him cross-eyed.

By the time he was in the eighth grade at A. P. Giannini Junior High School, his reputation as a street brawler and school-yard extortionist was fully established. Kids would take the long way home after school to avoid crossing paths with him. Others hurried to the cafeteria at lunchtime in order to buy their meals before he relieved them of their money.

It had all come to a head when he was expelled from school in the spring of 1979.

He had been in English class reciting a poem when a kid a couple of rows over laughed at his mispronunciation of a word. Ryan had flown into a rage, jumped over a row of desks, and turned the kid’s face into a bloody pulp before the teacher could stop him.

Amid a lot of “Fuck you, teach” and other obscene outbursts, Ryan had been taken to the dean’s office. The police were called and he was cited for battery before being released to his parents.

After appearing in court at the Youth Guidance Center—or “Juvy,” as it was known to its youthful inmates—Ryan was convicted of battery and given thirty days and a year’s probation.

Living away from home was the last thing on Ryan’s mind as he rode through Napa Valley’s wine country in the backseat of his parents’ car. He suspected nothing,
even when they pulled into the parking lot of the neat little campus of the Dawn of Light Catholic Boys’ Home, which sat in the shadows of the Mayacamas Mountains. The setting was pleasant. Surrounded by vineyards, the school consisted of several buildings that formed a courtyard around a Spanish-style church. All the buildings were white with red-tile roofs.

“What gives, Pop? Why are we stopping here?” Ryan asked his dad, still not suspecting that he had arrived at his new home.

Kevin O’Hara got out of the car and, always the gentleman, opened the door for his wife, Bridgette. His son got out of the back seat and repeated his question, adding, “What is this place, Pop? Why are we here?”

Mr. O’Hara put his arm around his wayward boy and replied, “Come on, Son, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

They entered the front door to a rectory and were met by a receptionist, who asked them to have a seat. She disappeared from the room and returned a few minutes later with the director of the center.

Father Michael O’Rourke was a big, burly, fifty-year-old Irishman with a red face and receding gray hair, whose first service to the Lord had been in Ireland. After arriving in America in the early sixties, he was assigned to the “Dawn” and had been its director ever since.

He introduced himself to the worried parents and then looked at Ryan. “Welcome to the Dawn of Light, young man. I think you’ll be very happy here.”

“Hey, Pop, what the hell gives? What is this fucking place?” Ryan blurted out before he could catch himself.

The priest’s voice boomed into Ryan’s ears in a brogue so thick he could barely understand. “We’ll have none of that vulgarity in the house of the Lord or in any other building at this school, young man! Is that understood?”

“Yes, Father, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“Okay, then, water under the bridge, lad. You start with a clean slate from this point forward.”

After a half-hour orientation in which the rules of the center were laid out, Kevin O’Hara went to his car and returned with a suitcase. As instructed, he’d packed just one set of clothing. His son would only need them when leaving the school grounds on special occasions. The rest of the time, he would be wearing a uniform.

The last thing Kevin heard as he drove from the lot and disappeared through the vineyards was the fading voice of his son crying out in the distance, “Pop, don’t leave me here. I want to go home!”

Tears welled in his eyes and Bridgette wept quietly beside him as he turned onto the Silverado Trail and headed south, back to San Francisco.

T
he roar of a Harley eclipsed the pounding of the surf, snapping Ryan out of his latest daydream. Rising from the rock, he walked toward the parking lot and saw his friend getting off the hog.

Salvatore Angelo Miroglio was a big man. Six five, two hundred and fifty pounds, with piercing blue eyes and a body full of tattoos, he would have been an imposing figure even without the long brown hair and beard that made him look like a mountain man. The black leather jacket and Big Bens that he wore made his appearance all the more intimidating.

The two men approached each other, shook hands, and then went into their usual routine of fist thumping and bear hugs.

“We have a lot of catching up to do, you little Irish fuck.”

“Yeah, wop, we do.”

They laughed as they remembered the bloody noses and bruised knuckles that followed the first time they’d greeted each other in this manner. That time, the future friends weren’t joking.

It was a slow night at the restaurant and they were able to find a table by the window overlooking the ocean.

“What’ll it be, bro?” Sal asked as they sat down. “I’m buyin’.”

“Bud with a shot of Jack will do just fine, thanks.”

Sal chose Stoli on ice.

The waiter took their order and returned a few minutes later with the drinks.

Sal raised his glass. “Here’s looking at ya, bro. Now how about telling me to what I owe the honor of this meeting.”